


secrets

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, angst maybe????, lois and bruce could be read as romantic if you (me) want to read it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: bruce guards his secrets.





	secrets

Bruce guards his secrets.

 

He holds them close to his chest, wraps them under layers of steel.

 

He hides them, deep within himself, so he’s not hurt. So _they’re_ not hurt.

 

\---

 

Superman destroys Wayne Towers and Bruce paces the Batcave, rage curling in his chest.

 

He formulates a plan, and he brands criminals and pretends to think that _that’s_ a good idea, and he plots against Superman.

 

It’s just him and Alfred.

 

\---

 

Alfred understands the locking away, the hiding and layering of the secrets better than anyone else ever could, so he sighs and makes comments about grandchildren, and disagrees with Bruce but doesn’t say anything, and Bruce can feel Alfred glaring at him whenever he turns.

 

\---

 

Bruce follows the White Portuguese, and he goes to Lex Luthor’s house, who is younger than him and slimier than him. Bruce has met him a few times before, and already he can tell.

 

Bruce vanishes into the crowd, taking champagne and mingling, laughing, pretending. He follows Alfred’s directions to the files, and Mercy Graves intercepts him and Bruce smiles, goes back up into the fray.

 

“It’s encoded,” a voice says when Bruce re-enters the party. Bruce doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at the boy he knows is there.

 

“I know,” he says generally.

 

“Military grade,” the boy says, and he sounds skeptical. Bruce’s secrets are layered and wrapped and held tight, and he says, “So?” in the playboy’s voice.

 

“I’m just warning you,” the boy says, sourly, and Bruce finally turns to him, his secrets firmly in place.

 

“Thank you, Mister Drake, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he says, smiling blindingly, and he turns and walks away before Tim can say anything else.

 

\---

 

“What’s your position on the bat-vigilante in Gotham?” a reporter asks and Bruce looks past his stupid curly hair and stupid blinding smile and sees only Metropolis smeared in front of him.

 

Superman doesn’t have a secret identity, but Bruce thinks that if he did it might be Clark Kent.

 

Lex Luthor says something about bringing them together, and Bruce doesn’t understand, unless Kent _is_ Superman, but that would mean that Luthor _knows._

 

Bruce doesn’t dare to think about how much he might know, and Luthor comes out on top of that conversation, but Bruce learns more than Kent does, he is sure.

 

\----

 

He goes to get his files, and a woman in a red dress steals it first. It reminds him of any, all, both of the women he’s been in love with, but he doesn’t think of them.

 

\----

 

The White Portuguese takes him to Bludhaven, and Batman stands on rooftop and eavesdrops on some of Luthor’s men, and when they leave he stands up and turns and there they are.

 

Not the same rooftop, but close enough, and they’re both standing there, staring at him.

 

Blue wrapped over black and red and yellow and green and Batman stares.

 

They stare back.

 

It seems like eternity, like forever, that he stares at them, drinking them in.

 

A shout jolts him back to his senses, and he looks away.   
  
Batman vanishes into the shadows without looking back.

 

He has to guard his secrets.

 

\----

 

He sees the woman from Luthor’s party at another gala, and he wraps his arm around hers and gives a line that worked before, and she looks at him, unimpressed.

 

“The file is in your car,” she tells him, and she vanishes, even though she’s easily the most stunning woman there.

 

Bruce is impressed, and he vows to find her her photograph.

 

\----

 

The _White Portuguese_ is a _boat,_ and Batman finds it.

 

Superman finds Batman, and he sees right through him.

 

Superman calls Batman Bruce, and all Bruce sees is Clark.

 

“Next time that signal is on,” Clark Kent says, “Don’t answer it.”

 

He flies away and Batman smiles, spitting the blood from his mouth.

 

\----

 

 _YOU LET YOUR FAMILY DIE_ is written in red on a newspaper clipping.

 

Bruce feels bile rise up in his throat and he thinks of the secrets held close to his chest, locked up tight.

 

“Alfred,” he says after a minute, staring at the paper.

 

He’s not Batman but Alfred is still there.

 

“Yes, Mister Wayne?”

 

 _Mister Wayne_ isn’t Bruce, isn’t what Bruce remotely wants to be, but in these times of secrets and lies, he pretends like it doesn’t sting.

 

“I’m going to send you a picture,” he says, and he takes one of the papers. He turns to the man who brought them to him.

 

“Get to the bottom of this,” he says and the man takes the whole pile. Bruce sends the picture.

 

“Ah,” Alfred says, softly. “Interesting.”

 

“Have there been any,” Bruce says, and he swallows. “Developments?”

 

“No, sir,” Alfred says. “I would have warned you immediately.”

 

“Thank you,” Bruce says, and the rush of relief he feels at the news is nothing compared to the feeling of one of his secrets splintering away.

 

\----

 

That night, Bruce looks over to the case for the first time in months.

 

The green paint makes him feel sick.

 

\----

 

Batman waits for Superman by the signal.

 

Superman doesn’t disappoint.

 

\----

 

_Martha._

 

\----

Another secret cracks away from Bruce’s heart, and he feels too vulnerable.

 

\----

 

The woman from the party, from the galas, from the picture, from 1914 and now 2016, she lands between him and Superman with a shield and a sword and blazing.

 

She’s golden and brilliant and beautiful, and she’s _nothing_ like the ones from before.

 

\----

 

“Men are still good,” Bruce says, wrapped in a black coat and staring at red hair, the only color in the miserable, gray landscape.

 

Diana shifts from next to him and she turns to walk away.

 

Bruce thinks of the secrets buried under the surface of his heat and he wonders about hers.

 

\----

 

The first time, it’s because Bruce feels pity.

 

He invites her so she can get a story, so she can have company, so he can have someone.

 

Lois Lane is radiant, but her brilliance seems dulled.

 

Bruce knows how it feels, and he dances with her and they don’t talk for most of the night.

 

Her hands are cold.

 

\---

 

The _Planet_ is dying, so Bruce buys it.

 

He buys it for Clark, but the look Lois gives him when he waltzes in makes him wonder.

 

\---

 

The second time, it’s because he needs a reporter on his side.

 

He’s working a case, and he could use someone to grill the perp.

 

He tells her this when they dance too close, when he whispers it into her ear.

 

She grins and her hair looks like fire; Bruce thinks this could be _fun._

 

\----

 

Batman holds a man over the side of a building; he asks why with fear coloring his voice.

 

“They smell fear,” he says, on a whim, on a guess, and an insect-like creature appears and Batman sets the man down safely and lunges to fight the thing.

 

He misses a partner, he thinks suddenly, as he’s fighting it, but he pushes the thought back and punches back harder.

 

\----

 

“A strong man is strongest alone,” Arthur Curry says, standing shirtless in 17 degree weather. “Ever heard of that?”

 

“That’s not the saying,” Bruce says. He pushes his secrets under and behind his heart. “That’s the opposite of the saying.”

 

Bruce almost feels guilty for chiding Arthur, but he tells himself that he’s not alone, he’s working with Diana, at the very least.

 

He watches Arthur dive into the ocean and he wonders if the Aquaman is really alone.

 

\----

 

Bruce takes Lois to another gala. They stand outside, on the balcony, and she says, “Tell me a secret.”

 

Bruce thinks.

 

“When I was little I was afraid of bats,” he says, picking the easiest secret to tell. Lois smiles thinly.

 

“I feel like I’m not making Clark proud,” she confesses. “I’m only writing puff pieces and I’m too afraid to catch a bigger story.”

 

Bruce pauses and without thinking about it, peels off a secret from his heart and lets it fly into the air.

 

“I’ve been in love twice in my life,” he says, and Lois looks at him, curious. “Once with a daughter of the biggest assassin organization in the world and the other to a cat burglar who frequents Arkham Asylum.”

 

“What happened to them?” Lois asks, tilting her head.

 

“One left to go help her father, and the other is in a polyamorous relationship with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.”

 

“Fun,” Lois says, dryly. Then she pauses. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”

 

“I wanted to,” Bruce says, and he finds that it’s true.

 

\----

 

Bruce meets Barry Allen, who tells him that he just wants friends, and he looks so earnest, and Bruce has to physically push down memories just to get through the first conversation with him.

 

He tries not to think of red, of green or yellow, of blood splattered across the floors, of bright green paint and crowbars.

  
He focuses on the lightning instead, and tries to think about _life._

 

\----

 

Victor says no but then he says yes, so he can save his dad, and Barry tells him that he doesn’t know what to do, so Bruce says, “Save one person.”

 

He pretends this isn’t familiar, that he’s never trained newbies before, and he shoves his secrets in between his ribs.

 

\----

 

The water comes rushing towards them, and Bruce thinks, _I can’t die._

 

He can’t, not with his secrets, not with _them_ depending on him, waiting for him.

 

He tries to calculate ways to escape, ways to live, but then Aquaman rolls in and saves them, and Bruce feels a sudden rush of joy for his team.

 

\----

 

“I don’t understand,” Diana says, when they’re on the way to Metropolis. “Why is bringing him back so important to you?”

 

“Because,” Bruce says, and he lessens the hold on his secrets, tucked into his heart, “if I can do it once, maybe I can do it again.”

 

\----

 

Bruce ducks away before Barry and Victor get back.

 

“Lois,” he says, and she jumps.

 

“Batman!” she says, turning to the shadows where he’s appeared. “What’s wrong?”

 

Bruce closes his eyes, which she can’t see from behind the mask. He pushes down his own pain.

 

“We’re bringing him back,” he says. “And we need you there.”

 

There’s no question as to who “him” is.

 

Lois’s face lights up, and she stammers out questions, jumping to her feet, and Bruce wishes it could’ve been different.

 

He had really liked her.

 

\----

 

Lois and Clark fly away together, and Steppenwolf steals the last motherbox, and Bruce can only think, _at least that’s over._

 

It feels like an end, to the Superman thing.

 

Bruce had killed him. Bruce had brought him back.

 

Bruce locked his secrets away after Wayne Tower collapsed. It’s been over two years since then.

 

Maybe--just maybe--he can open up again.

 

\----

 

“How’d you get the farm back?” Clark asks. “From the bank?”

 

“I bought the bank,” Bruce says. Clark gapes at him.

 

“The whole bank?” he asks, and Bruce almost tells him about the _Planet._

 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s a reflex.”

 

They watch Lois help bring boxes inside, and Bruce thinks about what might’ve been.

 

He’d probably feel guilty if anything had happened, though.

 

Bruce helps with boxes and decides that it’s a good thing nothing happened, and it’s a happier ending to his love life than usual.

 

\----

 

He leaves after dinner, and he stares up at the stars, and he smiles.

 

His secrets are still tucked into his chest, and Bruce makes his way across the high grass to open them up again.

 

\----

 

 

 

Bruce guards his secrets.

 

 

\---

 

 

“Hey, Dickhead, maybe warn me before you jump off a building without a grapple next time,” a familiar voice says, crawling in through the window.

 

“I thought I could make it!” another voice says, faintly, clearly from behind her. “I usually can!”

 

“Circus freak,” she huffs good-naturedly.

 

 

\----

 

 

He holds them close to his chest, wraps them under layers of steel.

 

 

\---

 

 

“ _Excuse_ me?” he says from behind her, his voice-mock offended.

 

Bruce watches from the shadows. She tumbles in through the window, with him right behind her.

 

He’s holding his arm like he’s sprained it, and her face is bleeding. She peels off the green mask and wipes her face, the blood smearing onto her cheek and glove.

 

He freezes.

 

“There’s someone here,” he says, putting a hand on her shoulder, and she goes defensive.

 

 

\----

 

  

 

He hides them, deep within himself, so he’s not hurt. So _they’re_ not hurt.

 

But they're okay.

 

  

\---

 

 

Bruce steps out of the shadows.

 

He’s not in his Batman suit, just a sweater and jeans.

 

Both of their faces change, twist.

 

Stephanie throws herself at him, and he scoops her up, holds her close.

 

Dick is behind her, and he throws his arms around them both.

 

“You’re here,” Steph says into Bruce’s shoulder. She’s definitely getting blood on his sweater. Bruce doesn’t care.

 

“We heard about--about your new team, and Superman, and we weren’t sure--” Dick says, but Bruce removes an arm from around Steph and puts it around his oldest, dragging him closer and shutting him up.

 

“I missed you,” he tells them. “Both of you.”

 

“I missed you too,” Steph says. She sounds like she’s crying. “It’s been _so long.”_

 

“I know,” Bruce says. “I know.”

 

He hugs his son, and he hugs his daughter, and the last of the secrets bloom into life in his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
>  
> 
> comments/kudos are ALWAYS welcome!


End file.
